Be Your Own Boss - by Taslim OKUNOLA

Unemployment is a phenomenon that affects most of the youths today. Even the intellectual ones that wants to exhibit the genius in them don't get the avenue (job) to do so. I have come to notice that even most of those that get the available jobs are the unfit but were recognized for the job because of their "connections". Children of the rich and influential get their appointment letter in maximum comfort probably while holidaying abroad while the children of the "common" people get to write so many application letters and attend lots of interviews in search for a good job. At a end of the day, they get nothing but a job that will pay them pennies as salary.

Well, most people discuss about the problems of this unemployment and so many other things that are not relevant to Job Creation. They keep blaming the government for everything. Although, I am very much aware that the government is to be blamed but blaming them will only aggravate our problems. How? It will keep us busy and would not let us focus on how we can adapt to the situation created by carving a niche for ourselves in the economy world. We could riot from today till the end of the year, the job that will be created by the government will never cater for all of us. The last set of "problematic" job interviews that was conducted in Nigeria by the Nigerian Immigration Service recorded about 520,000 unemployed applicants for 4,556 slots. Tell me, if the whole of Nigeria decide to protest so that the government will create more job, can 520,000 jobs be created at a go just like that? NO!

We really need to awaken the boss in us. We need to completely remove mindset 1 that: "a job is somewhere for me, I will keep searching without relenting". We need to change our mindset to mindset 2: "there is no job any where. if I want to work, I must be my own boss". Do you know what you can achieve with mindset 1? You will keep searching, wasting lots of money you could have invest and even if you see one at the end of the day, YOU ARE A WORKER. Do you know what you can achieve with mindset 2? You will strive to gather capital for an idea you created and have sought the advice of your trustees on. You start on a small scale and when your business turns large scale in the future, you create more jobs for the coming generation. And guess what? YOU ARE THE BOSS!!! You can achieve the unachievable. YES, YOU CAN!

My name is Taslim OKUNOLA and I am a progressive Nigerian youth.

Thanks for reading.